hanging upside down from the rafters

Interesting times!

I’m involved in a couple of exciting projects at the moment. Actually, I’m involved in a LOT of exciting projects (you know me, it’s what I do), but there are two I want to tell you about.

Beeston Poets

Some of you might remember a long-running series of poetry events at Beeston Library which started in 1983 and went on for over fifteen years. It’s before my time (i.e. when I was mired deep in the world of computers – poetry of a different kind) so I missed out on the opportunities to hear established and up-and-coming poets like Jackie Kay, Helen Dunmore, Roger McGough, Wendy Cope, Carol Ann Duffy, Michael Longley, Liz Lochhead…

The Nottingham Poetry Society, in partnership with Nottinghamshire Libraries and Five Leaves Publications (who published the anthology Poems for the Beekeeper in 1997 to commemorate the fifteenth series of Beeston poetry readings) with support from Writing East Midlands, is now working on re-establishing the series in the wonderful new upstairs space at Beeston Library. We’ve got one event lined up already – Neil Astley will be reading on November 24th 2012 – and another is in the pipeline for October 2012.

I’m designing the logo for the website at the moment. And then I’ll build the website. It’s all very exciting!

Nottingham Festival of Words

Next February, there will be a literature festival in Nottingham! ‘About time too!’ I hear you cry. It will take place in various city centre venues on the weekend of February 15/16/17 2013, to coincide with Light Night on February 15.

The Nottingham Festival of Words will take place for the first time in the City next year. It will be a great celebratory event bringing together diverse forms of word-related cultures, and will include all forms of literature, spoken word, theatre/film, and anything else connected with words. Nottingham Festival of Words is looking for event and activity proposals that will enable and encourage the public to engage with literary culture in all its forms. If you are an individual, group or organisation working with words we would love to work with you, so tell us about your event ideas.

Publicity will be created for the Festival as a whole, incorporating information about all of the events. A central venue will act as a hub, with a book market and a selection of spaces for events, while other venues throughout the city will also host events.

A dedicated team will manage the Festival, deciding on the programme, producing publicity, liaising with the central venue and facilitating events – for example by providing a Festival Box Office and helping organisers to find venues for their events. Individuals, groups and organisations are invited to propose events for inclusion within the programme.

The Festival will be themed around ‘Lace and Love’ in 2013. There is a city-wide ‘Lace Season’ taking place in the months leading up to and culminating with Light Night, and you’ll note that the dates are very close to St Valentine’s Day. Your event need not be directly related to the themes, but we hope that most events will have at least some connection.

I’ll post the website address here as soon as it’s live (real soon now!) but in the meantime if you would like to propose an event for inclusion – deadline is June 30th – email me or nottwords [at] gmail [dot] com and ask for a proposal form. It’s going to be HUGE! You really want to be involved!